Microbes and men Author:Robert Tuttle Morris Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: by the habituated body cells of man, in addition to the factor of senescence of protoplasm in a family group of microbes. Microbic diseases which have newly arri... more »ved in a country have a tendency to run a violent course. Their poison calls out an exaggerated protest from body cells that are endangered. A toxin or a protein poison with which body cells are wholly unfamiliar phylogenetically may perhaps cause actual disorganization of the alarmed protective forces. For instance, the injection of a trifle of poisonous egg albumin into the circulation of a highly developed organism may arouse the nociceptors of body cells to a high degree of expectant attention. That may stand for sensitization. If a second injection of egg albumin is made at a time when these body cells are tensely watchful, they do not know how to meet the enemy to which they are unaccustomed. Control over the protein poison may be lost altogether, because the body cells had not gained, out of experience, a method for meeting such an unfamiliar enemy. In order to meet microbic protein poisons with which body cells have been familiar since the days of earliest environment the blood maintains a permanent police force, consisting of phagocyte and complement. In response to the entrance of a microbic enemy with its protein poison, antibodies and opsonins are summoned by our police force. As a result of the united labor of permanent complement and summoned antibody, microbes are struck down paralyzed. As a result of the united labor of permanent phagocyte and summoned opsonin these microbes which have been struck down paralyzed are now eaten up with relish by the phagocyte. Body cells love their enemies when the latter are tastefully served up. All of this hunting and feasting is along established lines of conduct. When a ...« less